Free Republic

The gender theory, which is behind the homosexual revolution and the attack on the family was highlighted in Pope Benedict’s Christmas message to Vatican prelates this morning. “There is no denying the crisis that threatens,” the family “to its foundations – especially in the Western world,” he said. Crediting the Chief Rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim, for the research, Pope Benedict XVI said “the attack we are currently experiencing on the true structure of the family, made up of father, mother, and child, goes much deeper” than was originally believed. “While up to now we regarded a false understanding of...

The government of Quebec is forcing Catholic schools to replace the Christian religion with the state’s “neutral” alternative based on moral relativism. That’s how defenders of religious freedom have responded to last week’s court ruling that a private Catholic high school must teach the state’s “secular” Ethics and Religious Culture (ERC) course. Barbara Kay slammed the judges’ decision in the National Post on Wednesday, arguing that it empowers a government to “compel a faith community to jettison its driving beliefs in order to promote the state’s secular religion of multiculturalism; or indeed, in the future, to compel promotion of any...

The American Humanist Association is promoting a new Web site that is designed to furnish children with a naturalistic or atheistic perspective on science, sexuality, and other topics. The stated goal of the Web site is laudatory: “to encourage curiosity, critical thinking, and tolerance among young people, as well as to provide accurate information regarding a wide range of issues related to humanism, science, culture, and history.” The problem is that those values have no inherent connection with naturalism, which is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that there is nothing beyond the physical contents of the universe. One doesn’t need...

Yesterday the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) failed to reach the two-thirds majority needed to ratify the treaty. The White House expressed its dissatisfaction saying, in part, “We are disappointed that the overwhelming majority of Senate Republicans today blocked the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which would enshrine American standards that have been developed through decades of bipartisan cooperation.” The treaty is an international human rights instrument of the United Nations to protect individuals with disabilities. Parties are bound Under the Convention to ensure that disabled people enjoy the same human...

A Texas man is battling for custody of his first-born daughter after his wife successfully gave her up for adoption without telling him - to a family who now refuses to return the girl. Terry Achane, 31, a drill instructor in South Carolina, says it was just days after he left his pregnant wife for his new job out of state that she quietly signed over their unborn baby to a family of seven in Utah. His newborn baby, whom he had wanted to name Teleah, was given to Jared and Kristi Frei, who now say the girl is theirs...

An appellate division panel said Tuesday a Bergen County district’s policy for disciplining students for delinquent behavior that occurred off campus was “overbroad” and exceeded a school’s authority. The opinion upheld a prior ruling by the state education commissioner, who advised the Ramapo Indian Hills Regional High School District to revise its policy. Known as “Regulation 6145,” the disputed policy said students would be temporarily suspended from sports and other extracurricular activities if they were arrested at any time, on campus or off, for allegedly drinking alcohol, using drugs, or violating a criminal statute or municipal ordinance. When then-Acting Education...

FARMINGTON, UT, November 15, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – The ACLU has filed a lawsuit to force a Utah school district to keep a lesbian advocacy book on elementary school library shelves. In the Davis School District in Utah, children as young as kindergarten age can check out a homosexual propaganda book called In My Mothers’ House, about three adopted kids and their lesbian “mothers,” if their parents sign a permission slip. The book was removed from shelves after another Windridge mother complained to school officials when her kindergartner brought it home. It is presently kept behind the counter. This minor obstacle...

Europe’s highest court on human rights will decide if a lesbian can adopt her partner’s child, in this case stripping the father of his parental rights to his son. The case is very simple according to Gregor Puppinck of the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ). “The two female partners want to oust the father and, since the law does not allow them to do so, they claim it is discriminatory,” Gregor reported in Turtle Bay and Beyond, C-FAM’s blog. The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights will hear the case X and others v. Austria...

SACRAMENTO (Reuters) - Governor Jerry Brown has signed a bill barring a controversial therapy that aims to reverse homosexuality in minors, the measure's sponsor said on Sunday, making California the first state to ban a practice many say is psychologically damaging. The move marked a major victory for gay rights advocates who say so-called conversion therapy, also called reparative therapy, has no medical basis because homosexuality is not a disorder. The bill's sponsor, state Senator Ted Lieu, a Democrat from Torrance, said in a statement that Brown had signed the bill. An announcement from the governor's office was expected on...

Girls Age 14 Can Get Birth Control At New York City Schools New York City school and health officials are stepping on parental rights by going beyond condom giveaways and giving girls as young as age 14 “morning-after pills” and other chemical contraceptives at school without telling their parents, leaders of traditional values groups said Monday. Their reactions were sparked by news that nurses in 13 public high schools are dispensing Plan B emergency contraception and other products to sexually active students who ask for it. “We’re incensed at the arrogance of this administration. The state is constantly telling parents,...

EXCLUSIVE The Department of Education is giving morning-after pills and other birth-control drugs to students at 13 high schools, The Post has learned. School nurse offices stocked with the contraceptives can dispense “Plan B” emergency contraception and other oral or injectable birth control to girls without telling their parents — unless parents opt out after getting a school informational letter about the new program. CATCH — Connecting Adolescents To Comprehensive Health — is part of a citywide attack against the epidemic of teen pregnancy, which spurs many girls — most of them poor — to drop out of school. Helayne...

A bill prohibiting the use of controversial therapy aimed at 'curing' homosexuality on gay teenagers has been approved by California's Assembly, bringing the state a step closer to becoming the first in the U.S. to outlaw the practice. The vote in the Democratic-controlled Assembly on Tuesday represented a major victory for gay rights advocates who insist that so-called conversion therapy has no medical basis because homosexuality is not a disorder. Democrat Richardo Lara, one of several openly gay legislators to champion the bill during the debate, urged Assembly members to stand with 'sissy boys'.

A new bill that’s the first of its kind has opinion hotly divided in California, this time over whether parents can be banned from trying to “cure” their gay children. Senate Bill 1172, which would prohibit all “sexual orientation change efforts” for minors, is through the legislature and slated to land on the governor's desk in September.

A judge has ordered that doctors can switch off a young boy’s life-support system even though his devout Christian parents pleaded for him to be kept alive in case of a miracle. Mr Justice Ryder said there was no hope of the eight-year-old recovering from lung failure after a “tragic decline in health” and it would be wrong to keep him alive and possibly in pain on a machine. He paid tribute to the boy’s parents and teenage sister, who told the High Court that they believed he was still conscious and that there was still a chance of divine...

A first-of-its-kind state law that would restrict parents from trying to "cure" their minor children's same-sex attractions seems headed to the governor's desk.

BURLINGTON, Vermont (Reuters) - A Mennonite minister was found guilty on Tuesday of aiding a kidnapping by helping a woman flee to Nicaragua with her daughter to evade court orders giving visitation rights to her former lesbian partner. The case drew widespread attention as gay rights groups and evangelical Christian groups took opposing sides in the legal battle between the two women over Isabella Miller-Jenkins, now 10. Federal prosecutors say Kenneth Miller of Stuarts Draft, Virginia, helped orchestrate Lisa Miller's flight to Canada and Nicaragua in 2009 with her daughter out of Christian solidarity with her decision to reject homosexuality...

Senator John Kerry announced yesterday that he plans to pass the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities before July 26—just 13 days from today. He has scheduled a formal committee vote next Thursday—July 19. This is an unprecedented attempt to jam a binding international treaty through the Senate without proper time for debate or consideration.

Swatting little Johnny on the bottom to make sure he doesn’t try again to put a fork in an electrical socket soon could make mom or dad a criminal subject to the penalties of child-abuse laws in Delaware. And an international family rights organization says it not only opposes the idea, it will be working with state organizations to try to defeat the plan. At issue is Delaware’s Senate Bill 234, which has been approved by the Senate and now is working its way through the House. “Senate Bill 234, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Patricia Blevins (District 7), creates...

I am not content to sit on the sidelines while the government gradually usurps the very essence of parental rights. I hope you share my determination. We need to stand with people like Scott and Jodi Ferris (obviously no relation to someone named Farris). Here’s their story: Jodi went into labor a bit earlier than she had expected—and the baby was coming rapidly. Given their location and other factors, the midwife they had hoped would deliver the baby at their home encouraged them to get in an ambulance and head to the hospital. Their baby, whom I will call “Annie,”...

JANET BAIRD writes: President Obama and the Department of Health and Inhuman Services, as you know, recently decreed that free sterilizations be available to all college-age women under Obamacare. But the truth is even more sinister. Note the wording of the HHS regulation. As reported at CNS news, ‘[a]ll Food and Drug Administration [(FDA)] approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity,’ as prescribed by a provider,” said the HHS description of the regulation. [emphasis added] This clause caught my eye, “for all women with reproductive capacity.” Have you thought about the...